To ask for urgent laptop help - i may have just lost all dd's gcse work

[TheoriginalLEM]

Dd laptop had the black screen of death and i found something online to say do a bios update.

So now its logging on but not accepting her password. She cannot recall her Microsoft account name to reset it.

I am such a bad parent - please help

Oh Christ...

Urm can you take it to a computer shop to see if they can help?

Might have to but not on a sunday ...is that bad

Her microsoft account name is probably her gmail email address if she has gmail. If she can't remember that then there is a reset my email address function on gmail too.

Hope you get it sorted

Does she have an email with the account name?

Kids here use google docs so everything is online (no help but may help in the future)

Fingers crossed they can help when you get there

Ring Microsoft, they can remotely reset it

You're not a bad parent, it's easily done. Where is the work saved? Her Microsoft account name should just be her email address.

Does it have an SD card?

She can reset her Microsoft account with the email address she uses. Just fill out a "forgot my password" form and a link should be send to her email account.

Her username is [email protected] but when i go on ms site it says that account doesnt exist

Is this helpful?
support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/17875/microsoft-account-recover

Are you confusing her online Microsoft account with actually logging onto the laptop itself? The device password.

Could be a completely different username and password.

Call Microsoft tomorrow. Maybe they can help.

Otherwise I'd advise having someone take out the harddrive of the laptop and connect it to another computer. You might be able to recover the files that way.

If none of your family or aquaintances know how to do this, you might try a repair shop. There are also tutorials on Youtube how to accomplish this. It's a bit tehcnical, but it can be done. As long as you haven't reinstalled Windows the files will still be on the harddrive.

Funko yes i think you are right. I did the update thing and now it isn't accepting password which we know to be correct

On the microsoft sign in page you can select "sign in options" which allows to recover a lost username.

I did this once and found a YouTube video with a workaround (which showed how pointless password protection is) but it was a while ago so probably not relevant to current windows version.

Is the login screen showing her name? There's a certain virus that looks like you're logging in as normal but it's not your account, sometimes it says "other user" or "user1".

Is her work backed up to a cloud account?

Did she used to ligin with an meail address or a username?

In the login page of windows you can sometimes change the login. If it was a username you need to select login with a local account. If it was an email you need to select login online.

If you don't know what you are doing the best thing you can do is not monkey about with it. The work has not been lost, a professional will be able to recover it. Depending on what has happened this can be a very easy and quick problem to resolve or may take more time and effort. Quick and easy is more likely than difficult but no gaurentee of that.

There is an important lesson for DD here regarding computers - back up anything you can't afford to loose!

If it's from Curry's, they normally open on a Sunday, their "Knowhow" team can deal with it.

Is it not logging on to the machine or not logging in to an online microsoft account?

If you have access to another computer you can try this

Method 3: Reset Microsoft Account Password Online
Since Windows 8, most people are now using a Microsoft account for logging into Windows. When you forgot your Microsoft account password, just use another computer to visit the Windows Live password reset page on the Microsoft website, and you can reset the password online. It's relatively easier than resetting local account password.

Forgot Microsoft account password

This method requires you to have access to the alternate email account or phone number you provided when signing up the Microsoft account. If you don't have access to those anymore, Microsoft will be unable to verify your identity. In that case, you can convert Windows 10 Microsoft account to a local account from a boot media, so you can log back into Windows 10 without losing files.

Machine

Do you have a separate device like a tablet. If your DD has been using MS One Drive to store her assignments (even though she's using a laptop to actually work on), she should be able to logon to her cloud account One Drive from your tablet (or any other device with web/WiFi connectivity) using her Microsoft email account and p/w

It doesn't resolve the laptop issue, but it will enable her to check that she does still have that data so hasn't lost the work. You can then fix the laptop in slower time. It will need a service like The carphone Warehouse/Curry's Team Knowhow (which used to be the Geek Squad until recently).

www.teamknowhow.com/protect-it/repair-and-support-plan/computer-and-laptop

Is it set to log in as user: "adminstrator"? That can happen after reset. You may need to change the user to your daughters logon name, then try what she believes is her laptop password?

There is an important lesson for DD here regarding computers - back up anything you can't afford to loose!

Yy

The other maxim is

Unless you have the data you care about backed up twice, you haven't got a backup!